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Posted By: jchuzi Mountain Lion, the next cat - 02/16/12 02:13 PM
OS X Mountain Lion Sneak Peek
Posted By: grelber Re: Mountain Lion, the next cat - 02/16/12 03:14 PM
Somehow I don't see this as a major OS upgrade to Lion.

If all it's doing is making the Mac more like an iPad — seemingly by merely adding embellishments like Messages, Notification Center, Reminders, Notes and Game Center, all to be coordinated within iCloud — then for people like me who don't have/want an iPad, iPhone, iPod and their ilk and who don't play games and who are highly suspicious of iCloud, it's a complete and utter "pass".
Posted By: jchuzi Re: Mountain Lion, the next cat - 02/16/12 04:10 PM
That's my reaction, exactly. In fact, as a card-carrying Luddite, I don't find that Lion has anything to offer me over Snow Leopard. Yes, there are a few things that look nice, but I don't want to give up Rosetta and the "improvements" are not worth the PITA of upgrading. So far, I'll stick with 10.6. Gatekeeper, however, looks interesting.
Posted By: joemikeb Re: Mountain Lion, the next cat - 02/16/12 04:34 PM
Anyone who has been watching could/should have seen this coming. The iDevices and Macs have been and are moving more and more into a single integrated environment. A year or so ago the rumor was OS X would eventually become "iOS Desktop" as opposed to "iOS Mobile" for the iDevices with iCloud being the integrating media that pulls it all into a relatively seamless environment.

Given the success of the iPhone and iPad this makes all sorts of market sense for Apple. I have talked to any number of new iPhone and iPad users who are now watning/wishing to trade their PCs for a Mac. An integrated operating environment will inevitably lead to increased Mac sales. cool
Posted By: grelber Re: Mountain Lion, the next cat - 02/16/12 05:11 PM
Originally Posted By: joemikeb
Anyone who has been watching could/should have seen this coming. The iDevices and Macs have been and are moving more and more into a single integrated environment. A year or so ago the rumor was OS X would eventually become "iOS Desktop" as opposed to "iOS Mobile" for the iDevices with iCloud being the integrating media that pulls it all into a relatively seamless environment.

Given the success of the iPhone and iPad this makes all sorts of market sense for Apple. I have talked to any number of new iPhone and iPad users who are now wanting/wishing to trade their PCs for a Mac. An integrated operating environment will inevitably lead to increased Mac sales. cool

But of course that's the case (without my wishing to diminish your commentary).

I've got no problem with Apple's wanting to increase computer sales; I've been hoping for it since 1984. But at best it's been stalled at the 10-percent market coverage pretty much ever since then. That ain't too shabby, but certainly not what Apple had in mind. But when Microsoft "seconded" the technology, Apple took a bath.

Now perhaps (hoping against hope) assembled multitudes can understand why I liked OS 9 so much that I only reluctantly moved into the age of Lion a few months ago. {sigh} But I'm glad I did. {double sigh}
Posted By: Hal Itosis Re: Mountain Lion, the next cat - 02/16/12 06:54 PM
All this means is i will definitely skip Lion... and likely get forced into a 10.8 upgrade for my 2010 MBP, eventually.

But since i've been an iTools->MobileMe subscriber for many years now (missed eWorld though), one of my main e-mail addresses is .mac (or .me), and we are basically being forced to go beyond 10.6 by June 30 (at which time MobileMe will reportedly croak). Or so it seems anyway, since MobileMe is morphing into iCloud, which requires Lion or better on the desktop.

Plus i do have a couple of iOS devices... and being able to sync and access e-mail (as well as address books, calendars, reminders, bookmarks, etc., etc.), while mobile is pretty darn handy (and addicting).

For those in my shoes who...
a) use .mac (or .me) as their principal e-dress, and who
b) wish to stick with Snow Leo for as long as possible; then
....here are some kb docs to study:

Naturally anyone getting a new Mac this summer will have to hop on the 10.8 bandwagon... but this notion of forcing folks running Snowy to upgrade in order to maintain their MobileMe->iCloud status is somewhat annoying. [there have been rumors that a 10.6.9 release will pacify us... but i suspect it may omit some coolness to further convince the remaining holdouts.]
Posted By: jchuzi Re: Mountain Lion, the next cat - 02/16/12 09:03 PM
Mountain Lion signals end-of-life for older Macs
Posted By: dkmarsh Re: Mountain Lion, the next cat - 02/17/12 12:59 AM

Quote:
...as a card-carrying Luddite, I...

Oh, give me a break. You, a Luddite? The man with a Mac Pro and four Hitachi hard drives? The man each of whose OS X upgrades has invariably been embraced, retrospectively, as the best version of OS X yet? shocked

I don't think so. laugh
Posted By: Hal Itosis Re: Mountain Lion, the next cat - 02/17/12 02:34 AM

Well then, they don't have to worry about upgrading to 10.8, do they? wink

Something odd about Lion & 10.8 (no, i'm not going to be typing out its entire 4-syllable name, not even mentally... at some point i may go with 'Mounty' probably): these two OS updates mark the first time i have no interest in moving forward. Snowy works, and Lion added nothing essential whatsoever (e.g. Time Machine in 10.5). Plus, i only have Snowy because it came with my 2010 MBP.

All this 'App Store download regimen' and 'Recovery partition rigamarole' with Lion was more of a turn-off than an attraction. So we will see if Apple forces the ones who wish to stay with Snowy into upgrading, by holding hostage our [.mac/.me] e-mail access, starting in July 2012.

I hope not.
Posted By: artie505 Re: Mountain Lion, the next cat - 02/17/12 03:08 AM
Originally Posted By: Hal Itosis
Something odd about Lion & 10.8 (no, i'm not going to be typing out its entire 4-syllable name, not even mentally... at some point i may go with 'Mounty' probably): these two OS updates mark the first time i have no interest in moving forward. Snowy works, and Lion added nothing essential whatsoever (e.g. Time Machine in 10.5). Plus, i only have Snowy because it came with my 2010 MBP.

All this 'App Store download regimen' and 'Recovery partition rigamarole' with Lion was more of a turn-off than an attraction. So we will see if Apple forces the ones who wish to stay with Snowy into upgrading, by holding hostage our [.mac/.me] e-mail access, starting in July 2012.

I hope not.

I'm with you 100%, but I don't have to worry about the .mac/.me thing. :YAAAY!!!: cool (You forgot about QuickLook...my impetus to upgrade to Leopard.)

On the other hand, though, updated browser technology and Security Updates may eventually force us to upgrade. frown

The nomenclature process associated with 10.8 seems to have been faulty... A mountain lion is the same thing as a puma, so maybe we can all save ourselves a bunch of typing by just resurrecting the latter.
Posted By: grelber Re: Mountain Lion, the next cat - 02/17/12 07:36 AM
And then, of course, there's David Pogue's take:
Apple’s Mountain Lion Makes the Mac More Like the iPad

Addendum: Did I forget to mention earlier that I really give a flying fig newton about the thoroughgoing integration of Twitter? tongue
Posted By: artie505 Re: Mountain Lion, the next cat - 02/17/12 09:44 AM
Originally Posted By: grelber
And then, of course, there's David Pogue's take:
Apple’s Mountain Lion Makes the Mac More Like the iPad

Three notable quotes from Pogue's column (Emphasis added):
  1. [...] Thursday’s announcement: from now on, Apple will update Mac OS X once a year.
  2. Over all, Mountain Lion shows that Apple is continuing to unify its ecosystem — to bring the same apps, interfaces and data to all Apple gadgets. It’s a calculated, evilly smart way to make staying within the Apple family even more desirable, comfortable and useful.
  3. The bigger question is how long it can keep coming up with big cat names. Mac OS X Bobcat? Mac OS X Cougar (Same as Puma & Mountain Lion [and, I just noticed, Panther])? Mac OS X Really Fat Tabby?
All in all, ML is simply the next step in the progression begun by Lion.

Edit: I can't begin to guess how the setup will work, but I can envision a day when Macs, iPhones, and iPads will be sold as "paired" sets. (I wonder whether we'll be able to buy the individual components or whether Apple is on the road to creating a "minimal user" niche, much like the 56k modem/capped bandwidth niche, that it doesn't care to fill?) frown
Posted By: jchuzi Re: Mountain Lion, the next cat - 02/17/12 10:23 AM
Two interesting reads:

With Mountain Lion, Apple officially drops 'Mac' from OS X name
New York Times gets Gizmodo treatment from Apple after negative reports
Posted By: dkmarsh Re: Mountain Lion, the next cat - 02/17/12 10:33 AM

Quote:
Addendum: Did I forget to mention earlier that I really give a flying fig newton about the thoroughgoing integration of Twitter? :P

At 133 characters, a damn near perfect tweet!
Posted By: artie505 Re: Mountain Lion, the next cat - 02/17/12 10:34 AM

Your first link is dead, Jon; your second leads to news, but old-hat news.
Posted By: dkmarsh Re: Mountain Lion, the next cat - 02/17/12 10:36 AM

You might want to edit your post to include the URL for your first link, Jon.
Posted By: alternaut Re: Mountain Lion, the next cat - 02/17/12 10:40 AM
The first link is incomplete rather than dead, although the result is the same. Your comment about the second link leading to 'old-hat' news depends to a large extent on how early you get up in the morning, in which time zone you happen to be, or on the quality of your clairvoyance... smirk Perhaps it's time for a cup of coffee all around... tongue
Posted By: artie505 Re: Mountain Lion, the next cat - 02/17/12 10:49 AM
Originally Posted By: alternaut
The first link is incomplete rather than dead, although the result is the same. Your comment about the second link leading to 'old-hat' news depends to a large extent on how early you get up in the morning, in which time zone you happen to be, or on the quality of your clairvoyance... smirk Perhaps it's time for a cup of coffee all around... tongue

By "dead," I meant that it doesn't lead to where it's supposed to lead. Having made the same mistake myself...more than once, I actually realized that it was incomplete. (I plead guilty to poor choice of words.)

By "old-hat" I meant not-unexpected behavior, regardless of the particulars.
Posted By: dkmarsh Re: Mountain Lion, the next cat - 02/17/12 10:54 AM

As long as we're taking a look at Mountain Lion, this account by John Gruber of the radically different way Apple introduced the next version of OS X makes for a nice introduction to what we might think of as Apple After Jobs: Daring Fireball: Mountain Lion.

Originally Posted By: John Gruber
Why not hold an event to announce Mountain Lion — or make the announcement on apple.com before talking to us?

That’s when Schiller tells me they’re doing some things differently now.

I wonder immediately about that “now”. I don’t press, because I find the question that immediately sprang to mind uncomfortable.

And while we're at it, some perspective from Horace Dediu on why the newest version of OS X will be so tightly integrated with iOS: Apple sold more iOS devices in 2011 than all the Macs sold...in 28 years.
Posted By: jchuzi Re: Mountain Lion, the next cat - 02/17/12 12:16 PM
Originally Posted By: dkmarsh

You might want to edit your post to include the URL for your first link, Jon.
Done.
Posted By: Pendragon Re: Mountain Lion, the next cat - 02/17/12 01:00 PM
Perhaps this is a clue as to the direction we're moving: Apple sold more iOS devices in 2011 than Macs in 28 years.
Posted By: grelber Re: Mountain Lion, the next cat - 02/17/12 01:25 PM
Originally Posted By: dkmarsh

Quote:
Addendum: Did I forget to mention earlier that I really give a flying fig newton about the thoroughgoing integration of Twitter? :P

At 133 characters, a damn near perfect tweet!

Oooh, you (d)evil you! smirk wink
Posted By: roger Re: Mountain Lion, the next cat - 02/17/12 06:30 PM
as others have said, there are a lot of Windows users with iPhones and iPads (and iPods) and the closer that a mac and the portable devices come, the more that people are likely to make the switch.

brilliant business move, I would say. and that's coming from someone who won't be able to run 10.8.
Posted By: artie505 Re: Mountain Lion, the next cat - 02/18/12 10:03 AM
> "brilliant business move"

I prefer Pogue's "evilly smart."

Edit: Interesting choice of words..."evil;" he could have said much the same thing in any number of ways that wouldn't risk arousing Apple's ire, or...
Posted By: Hal Itosis Re: Mountain Lion, the next cat - 02/18/12 04:37 PM
Originally Posted By: roger
brilliant business move

Originally Posted By: artie505
I prefer Pogue's "evilly smart."

I was gonna say... 'brilliant business move' may always be something great for the company, but not necessarily the consumer. [i.e., us.]

I'm starting to see Apple software lose features and/or accumulate bugs... all because the focus seems to be on enhancing and integrating "The App Store" into everything.

E.g., the music app in iOS 5 (when run on an iPad) is so faulty, i'm convinced that not a single engineer there ever actually uses the program in their personal lives. [i.e., after 5pm they never touch it again until 9am... and even then, it's only to do what the marketing team tells them: “hey, add a big button for the App Store right where users can't avoid clicking on it.” Meanwhile, the Playlist feature is a complete and utter disaster.]
Posted By: jchuzi Re: Mountain Lion, the next cat - 02/18/12 08:25 PM
Mountain Lion focuses on Cocoa, drops X11 and deprecates Carbon Core
Posted By: artie505 Re: Mountain Lion, the next cat - 02/19/12 02:08 AM
> I'm starting to see Apple software lose features and/or accumulate bugs... all because the focus seems to be on enhancing and integrating "The App Store" into everything.

Apple's grab for complete control over all content on our Macs, part of the problem, is exacerbated by sandboxing.

In addition to its resulting in functionality loss (as you suggested), I'm seeing app development slowed down because developers aren't certain of how the sandboxing issue will resolve.

How important is sandboxing?

Is it necessary in todays environment? Is it no more than an overreaction to some imaginary threat? Or is Apple being realistically visionary and conducting a pre-emptive strike against an amorphous, but nonetheless real, future threat? (Edit: Is this post the subject of a new thread...Mods?)

Edit 2: How important is sandboxing?
Posted By: dkmarsh Re: Mountain Lion, the next cat - 02/19/12 03:05 AM

Quote:
Apple's grab for complete control over all content on our Macs...

That's a tad hyperbolic even for you. laugh
Posted By: artie505 Re: Mountain Lion, the next cat - 02/19/12 08:05 AM
Originally Posted By: dkmarsh
Quote:
Apple's grab for complete control over all content on our Macs...

That's a tad hyperbolic even for you. laugh

Is it really?

Extending "control" to include Apple's being the source of supply rather than limiting it to control over content, etc. (which I assumed was implicit in my post) places them well along the way, and history suggests that they'll go for control over content, etc. as they strengthen their position as supplier.

I think it's visionary rather than hyperbolic. frown
Posted By: dkmarsh Re: Mountain Lion, the next cat - 02/19/12 11:38 AM

Quote:
Extending "control" to include Apple's being the source of supply rather than limiting it to control over content, etc...

Not really sure what you mean here. Are you seriously "envisioning" a Mac App Store in which only software written by Apple is available? Why on earth would they want to do that? As it stands now, thousands of developers create an astounding variety of Mac software, and Apple's only cost for this cornucopia is maintaining the infrastructure by which it's made available—which cost is defrayed by 30% of the take. I doubt you'll see them pick up a much higher tab for the vast reduction in choice that banishing third-party apps would accomplish.

You must mean something else by complete control over all content, but I can't figure out what.
Posted By: Hal Itosis Re: Mountain Lion, the next cat - 02/19/12 04:56 PM
Originally Posted By: dkmarsh
Not really sure what you mean here. Are you seriously "envisioning" a Mac App Store in which only software written by Apple is available? Why on earth would they want to do that? As it stands now, thousands of developers create an astounding variety of Mac software, and Apple's only cost for this cornucopia is maintaining the infrastructure by which it's made available—which cost is defrayed by 30% of the take. I doubt you'll see them pick up a much higher tab for the vast reduction in choice that banishing third-party apps would accomplish.

You must mean something else by complete control over all content, but I can't figure out what.

Perhaps he means that we are headed toward the day when only apps purchased from the MAS will function on OSX. All others will be Kept outside of the Gate. [that day already exists on iOS, unless jailbroken.]
Posted By: artie505 Re: Mountain Lion, the next cat - 02/21/12 11:01 AM
Originally Posted By: Hal Itosis
Originally Posted By: dkmarsh
Not really sure what you mean here. Are you seriously "envisioning" a Mac App Store in which only software written by Apple is available? Why on earth would they want to do that? As it stands now, thousands of developers create an astounding variety of Mac software, and Apple's only cost for this cornucopia is maintaining the infrastructure by which it's made available—which cost is defrayed by 30% of the take. I doubt you'll see them pick up a much higher tab for the vast reduction in choice that banishing third-party apps would accomplish.

You must mean something else by complete control over all content, but I can't figure out what.

Perhaps he means that we are headed toward the day when only apps purchased from the MAS will function on OSX. All others will be Kept outside of the Gate. [that day already exists on iOS, unless jailbroken.]

Brass ring to Hal...That's precisely what I meant, and my guess is that Apple's having cut middle-men out of the OS X distribution chain (which I predicted the day I heard that Lion was going to be a Mac App Store d/l) portends precisely that.

I'll offer the iTunes Store as an analogy: In 2003, Apple offered us the option to d/l our music, and now they've deprecated optical drives...no doubt because the iTunes Store has become the world's exclusive source for music. tongue

I can't argue against removable media's being a dying breed, but I think it's still a long way from dead...that Apple's position is, at today's date, more motivated by pushing recalcitrants to the iTunes Store and arbitrarily maximizing its profits than by a realistic vision of the immediate future of the optical drive CDs. (Further, but of absolutely no consequence to Apple is the fact that much, if not most, classical music [including operas] is unavailable as any sort of d/l, let alone high-quality. Oh... I forgot that we who favor that kind of music can buy ourselves USB...no, make that Thunderbolt optical drives.)

> All others will be Kept outside of the Gate. [that day already exists on iOS, unless jailbroken.]

I wonder whether anybody's considered making that a 1st Amendment issue, because, after all, Apple does include censorship in its review process?

Edit: Related posts
Posted By: tacit Re: Mountain Lion, the next cat - 02/21/12 12:07 PM
It's not going to become a First Amendment issue; that could only happen if someone were preventing a person from speaking freely, say, online at all, not just in Apple's stores.

Video game consoles have already been challenged on that issue, since the console makers keep incredibly strict control over what is allowed to be released for a console, and it's never succeeded. Every game console maker--Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, you name it--has tight limitations and exclusions about what is and is not allowed to be sold for their game consoles, and have the right to refuse to permit a developer to sell a game for any reason (or no reason at all), and those challenges have never been successful.
Posted By: jchuzi Re: Mountain Lion, the next cat - 02/22/12 09:13 PM
Not a game issue or a security issue, but still relevant to Mountain Lion:

What's keeping Mountain Lion off of some 64-bit Macs? Ars investigates
Posted By: artie505 Re: Mountain Lion, the next cat - 02/22/12 10:24 PM
> It's not going to become a First Amendment issue; that could only happen if someone were preventing a person from speaking freely, say, online at all, not just in Apple's stores.

At today's date, of course, but the Internet has changed things, and I suspect that we'll see some pretty interesting, not to mention very creative, cases making it to the Supreme Court in the future.

I don't envy the Justices who'll have to deal with them; they'll be breaking ground in areas that the Founding Fathers couldn't have begun to guess would ever exist.
Posted By: dkmarsh Re: Mountain Lion, the next cat - 02/23/12 12:01 AM

It's still not a First Amendment issue, because government isn't keeping anyone "outside the gate" of the Mac App Store.

Originally Posted By: 1st United States Congress
AMENDMENT I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Apple's behavior might be in violation of antitrust laws, but it's not unconstitutional.
Posted By: artie505 Re: Mountain Lion, the next cat - 02/24/12 01:23 AM
You're the history major... Good point!
Posted By: dkmarsh Re: Mountain Lion, the next cat - 02/28/12 10:44 PM

While we're linking to AppleInsider stories, here's one Mountain Lion feature that seems long overdue: a Preview of how Apple is improving file renaming.
Posted By: grelber Re: Mountain Lion, the next cat - 03/01/12 09:53 AM
Everybody's climbing on board ... or: Why I might be going back to the library and also digging out my IBM Selectric II.

Smartphones Have Led, and Desktops Will Follow
Posted By: joemikeb Re: Mountain Lion, the next cat - 03/07/12 01:53 PM
Some pundits are already predicting the end of the laptop by 2017, while others are saying it will happen before, even well before then. Fewer and fewer people can justify carrying a laptop around when their iPad or even iPhone can do anything they need to do and without the bulk of the laptop. Since laptops were well on the way to supplanting desktop computers, I suppose that means our desktop computers will eventually be relegated to the same niche currently occupied by today's big tower machines like the Power Mac.

For those who don't like the new integrated computing paradigm I suppose Linux will still be available as an OS alternative.
Posted By: alternaut Re: Mountain Lion, the next cat - 03/07/12 04:01 PM
Originally Posted By: joemikeb
Some pundits are already predicting the end of the laptop by 2017

I'm not sure either laptops or desktops will disappear anytime soon, but their market share is predicted to dip below that of tablets as early as 2013 (see When will tablets outsell traditional PCs?). Other pundits put that date back as far as 2017, but the trend seems clear.
Posted By: Hal Itosis Re: Mountain Lion, the next cat - 03/07/12 05:23 PM
i don't mind the tablet form factor (e.g., the iPad). What i —and power-users in general —simply cannot abide is how helpless the user is rendered technologically, in terms of observing low level stuff (e.g., can't use a CLI terminal to study the entire filesystem, can't monitor processes or network connections, etc).

edit/ Apple's effort to 'stupefy' the user is perfectly illustrated by the lame network activity indicator in iOS: the spinning gear. Why not a red arrow (triangle) for send and a green arrow for receive? So simple, yet . . .

As such, tablets may be both fun and useful as secondary devices, but definitely won't ever serve the geek demographic as one's sole machine. Therefore i don't believe that "real" computers (e.g., the MacBook Air) will be disappearing anytime soon.

It might also be argued that serious content creation (graphic, video, whatever) and the touch-screen GUI aren't yet nearly a productive combination, as the more familiar (and malleable) mouse/trackpad + keyboard method. Even basic text input (such as composing this reply and maneuvering/scrolling around the edit box) is still somewhat "fiddly" on touch-screen... though (admittedly) partly due to how webpages are designed (layout, etc).
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